Vashti - Glenn Conjurske

Vashti

by Glenn Conjurske

We know nothing more of Vashti than that she was beautiful, that she was the wife of Ahasuerus, and the queen over his empire, that she refused to obey his behest that she come to his feast to display her beauty to the men, and that she was dethroned and divorced for it, lest her example lead all the women in the empire to despise the authority of their husbands. These are the facts, but all of our concern is with their moral implications. Was it right or wrong for Vashti to disobey her husband? Was her sentence just or unjust? And after its usual manner, the Bible tells us nothing of that. It gives us only the facts, and leaves us to our own meditations to learn their moral character.

The chief question here must be, Was it right or wrong for Vashti to disobey her husband? And here we must dissent not only from the heathen king and his counsellors, but from many eminent Christians also. Bishop Hall writes, “Whatever were the intentions of Vashti, surely her disobedience was inexcusable. It is not for a good wife to judge of her husband’s will, but to execute it; neither wit nor stomach may carry her into a curious inquisition into the reasons of an enjoined charge, much less to a resistance; but in a hood-winked simplicity, she must follow whither she is led, as one that holds her chief praise to consist in subjection.” Bishop Hall lived in a different day than we do—-a day in which authority was not feared and shunned as it is today, in which the people would rather have a king than a democracy, in which “the divine right of kings” was held sacred, at least by the Episcopal party, and in which that right generally meant the right to arbitrary and unrestrained authority. The pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme today, but no matter about that. Neither Hall nor I ought to be influenced by popular opinion. I am very far from endorsing the principles of democracy, or believing that those principles are of God, but I am just as far from endorsing arbitrary authority. God is the author of authority, but he is not the author of arbitrary and abusive authority. This proceeds from the flesh or the devil, and we cannot attribute the corruption or abuse of God’s creation to God. Marital love is the creation of God also, but adultery and fornication are an abuse of it, and abuse of authority is no more of God than adultery is. The gifts and ordinances of God are often made the excuse for evil, but the excuse is lame and worthless.

No man is ever obliged to do wrong, and neither is any woman. To follow whither we are led, in hood-winked simplicity, holding that our chief praise consists in our subjection, is precisely the Mormon and Romanist doctrine of authority. God is not the author of such authority, nor of such subjection either.

But the rightness or wrongness of Vashti’s disobedience must be determined by a previous question: Was her husband’s demand right or wrong? It was wrong, without doubt, and we suppose few will be found to maintain the contrary. The command was in reality a deep offense against the most sacred precincts of feminine nature. The desire to be physically attractive is universal among women, but this is that they may be loved, not displayed. Yet there are men enough who are so coarse and insensitive as to desire a beautiful woman for a showpiece, to bolster their masculine pride. They give nothing to her in this, but only use her for their own gratification. They love to be seen with a beautiful woman. She is their trophy, their showpiece, and in exhibiting her they think to display their own superior masculinity.

Such was Vashti to Ahasuerus, and in this she shared the trials and ordeals which are the common lot of many of the most beautiful of women. She was celebrated for her beauty—-no doubt envied by many a plainer woman—-but that beauty failed to procure for her the deepest need of her heart. Though she was her husband’s favorite, and the queen of his empire, yet she was but one among the multitude of his women. And while her beauty failed to procure for her the love which was the deepest need of her heart, it laid in her lap something which she could well have done without. It made her a showpiece. She may have enjoyed this at the first—-and shallow women may enjoy it to the last—-but in time she evidently learned its emptiness, and may have come to envy those plainer women, who are loved and not displayed.

But be that as it may, it is one matter for a woman to be conscious that her husband regards her as a fine showpiece, while he escorts her down the street, and quite another to be called before an assembly of men for the sole purpose of exhibiting her beauty. A delicate feminine soul may bear the former, but hardly the latter. The former is an incidental thing, and his doing, not hers. The latter must be purposeful, and her own deliberate act. This were to be used by him, and to prostitute herself.

We suppose that Vashti received this command as a dagger to her soul. It was a deep offense against her femininity, and so much the worse because it came from her protector. We realize that Vashti was a heathen, and no Christian, but still she was a woman. Let the women who read this say how they would receive such a command, from their husbands or anyone else. Let even those women who are accustomed to dress so as to display their very form to the best advantage say how they would receive such a command. The man who makes his wife a showpiece violates her feminine soul, every bit as much as he would violate her body by making her the common property of all his friends. Vashti no doubt felt all this, and felt it deeply. It was no light matter for her to disobey her husband, in a day when arbitrary authority was the rule, and when her husband was the great king who held the fortunes of all his subjects in his hands, was rash and wrathful besides, and such a man as would sacrifice the lives of tens of thousands of Jews for a mere whim of one of his counsellors. Her disobedience was no light thing, and must have proceeded from the depth of her soul.

Though we might suppose that she was called upon to display no more than her facial beauty, yet her whole person must accompany her face, and she was called to exhibit herself before an assembly of men. She had her own feast for the women, and it was to the women’s feast that the king’s messengers came to call her. The command falls like a pall of gloom upon her soul. Her smiles are extinguished in a moment. Her face is troubled, her breathing deep. The eyes of all are turned upon her, and upon the messengers of the king who stand by. The spirit of Vashti spreads itself throughout the house. The laughter and chatter give way to silence and suspense. The mirth of the banquet is ceased. But as the king has his counsellors, to maintain his rights of masculinity, so the queen has her own counsellors also, and these were doubtless near her person at her banquet. She lifts her troubled countenance, and meets the eyes of her most trusted friend, then of another, and another. Their looks are as somber as her own, and she reads sympathy in every eye. She takes a deep breath, and speaks in a subdued but determined tone, “Would you do this?” She looks from one friend to another. The eyes of the king’s messengers are upon them also, and they scarcely dare to speak, but their solemn looks, accompanied by the slow and almost imperceptible shakes of their heads, say, No.

She turns to the messengers, and says, “Tell my lord the king that I cannot do this. I will explain myself to him later.” Thus did feminine modesty quietly triumph over lust and pride and arbitrary authority.

Alas, we live in a different day, in which the bands and cords of very nature have been broken asunder, and women have forced themselves to overcome their natural reserve and modesty, and make every scintilla of their feminine beauty a matter for constant display, in order to conform to the standards of France and New York and Hollywood. But this is not done easily. When I was in high school there was a popular song on the radio about a girl wearing a bikini for the first time, and being afraid to come out of the water, lest she should be seen. The second time, however, the matter would be easier, and easier still the third time, until she felt no embarrassment at all. Thus do women labor and force themselves to crucify their natural feelings and their God-given modesty in order to conform themselves to the world, and this is no easy process. Yet in time their modesty is overcome, and in the present day we have Evangelicals who will stand up in beauty pageants, and display not only their facial beauty, but their whole form also, and nearly their whole skin besides, prostituting all this to the gaze of the multitudes, the arts and intrigues of the television cameras, and the minute inspection of the judges. Any woman who is comfortable in such a place in such a condition is a fallen woman, who has sacrificed and crucified the reserve which belongs by nature to her femininity.

It is true that all women desire to be attractive, and to be esteemed so too, for no woman cares to be beautiful merely to delight her own eyes. Yet for all that she feels instinctively that to be put on display is a profanation of her beauty. ‘Tis true enough that women are sometimes hard to explain, and it is a fact that the same woman who will dress on purpose to display her form will feel vulnerable and violated and offended when a man takes the liberty to view her display. Though the revealing dress of many woman may be mere mindless conformity to the world, yet the dress of others is doubtless intelligent and purposeful, and yet even they will generally find themselves much bolder in their dressing-rooms than they do before the gaze of men, for all their sinfulness has not extinguished their innate feminine modesty. The wanton woman may delight to turn the heads and attract the eyes of men, but no woman was born wanton. Wantonness is acquired, by indulgence and habit, and it is not easy for a woman to become wanton. She is “a garden inclosed…, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed” (Song of Solomon 4:12), and by the instincts of her nature she holds all the delights of her femininity in reserve, till a man who loves her turns the key of her heart by his love, and opens the gate to the garden of delights. Yet it is open to him alone. In spite of all her sinful inclinations, she has yet an inbred modesty which belongs to her nature, and when she has lost that, she has lost something sacred to femininity. She may call herself uninhibited, and we will not dispute that, but this is the prime characteristic of a prostitute. It is against a woman’s nature to be comfortable in the embrace of every man, and so it is also to be comfortable before the gaze of every man. Vashti knew this by nature, and we have no doubt that the heathen Vashti shall rise up in the judgement and condemn the present generation of Evangelicals, who know it not with a Bible in their hands.

Vashti was doubtless well aware of the pride and rashness (two twin sisters) of her husband, and of his quickness to wrath also. She must therefore spend many an anxious thought on how she will explain and defend herself, and on how she will pacify his wrath. She had no doubt had occasion enough for this in the past, for every little infirmity, every innocent mistake, is a great fault in the eyes of a proud and wrathy man. She had no doubt been severely blamed for small faults before, and how would he deal with her deliberate disobedience? She settles it therefore in her heart what pleas and arguments she shall employ, what tears and entreaties, what feminine charms, to turn him from the expected fit of his anger. Alas, her well-laid plans must die in her own heart. She is never to speak to her husband again.

Ahasuerus is incensed at Vashti’s refusal. He is accustomed to the unquestioning obedience of an empire, and to doing as he pleases with any who dare to oppose his will. Not only so, but his pride is involved in the matter also. All the people and princes are awaiting the return of his messengers, in order that they may lay eyes upon the celebrated beauty of the queen, but the hunters come back without the bird, and the king must disappoint them all. How can a proud man who is quick to anger bear such an affront? “Therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him.” In such a condition he ought to have determined nothing. He ought by all means to have waited till his anger cooled. As an old proverb affirms, “When a man grows angry, his reason rides out,” and another, “Fire in the heart sends smoke into the head.” But how many angry men have sense enough to cool their anger before they act? Certainly not Ahasuerus. He was as rash as he was proud and wrathful. All his actions indicate this. He must often rue another day what he establishes unalterable today, yet he learns no wisdom by it.

With his anger burning in his heart, therefore, he turns to his counsellors to ask them, “What shall we do unto the queen Vashti?” Memucan answers. Vashti has wronged not only the king, but all the men in the kingdom. All the women will hear of this, and they will all despise their husbands. Let Vashti therefore come no more into the king’s presence; let her place be given to another that is better than she; and let all this be established by the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be altered.

The heart of the king is not only hot with anger, but warm with wine also, and this counsel seems good to him. It seems good to all the princes besides, and the counsel soon becomes the law. Thus masculine pride establishes its right to arbitrary authority, and its right to tread on the feelings of femininity and the hearts of women, and the weaker vessel must suffer. Neither is there any redress, till the day of judgement. Modern feminism thinks to right the wrongs of women, but it knows nothing of what those wrongs are, nor of what femininity is either. Feminism seeks redress—-or revenge—-for all those centuries of masculine rule, in which the woman was not allowed to be a man. The day of judgement (among other things) will redress her wrongs wherein she was not allowed to be a woman. Such was the wrong dealt to Vashti. The king’s determination to exhibit her feminine beauty was a violation of her feminine nature, and now she must be cast off for having a feminine soul.

But suppose that Vashti was all wrong. Suppose her disobedience proceeded from nothing more than high-spirited pride or petulant self-will. Suppose it was inexcusable, as Bishop Hall would have it. Grant all that, and still her sentence was inexcusable. Is a woman to be cast off without a parting word, without a parting glance of the eye, and without an opportunity to speak a single word in her own defence, for every offense or fancied offense? Is the security which is so sacred to her nature thus to stand in peril every moment? This was inexcusable, no matter what the offense of Vashti. Even if her husband had legitimate cause to put her away—-even if she were guilty of prostituting her body, as he would have had her to prostitute her beauty—-even then she ought to be allowed to speak in her own defence. To deny her this was to add insult to injury, but the world is filled with those who suffer thus at the hands of arbitrary power.

We know nothing more of Vashti. We may surmise that many tears and heartaches attended her future days, while she saw herself neglected and forgotten, and another occupying the place which had been wrongfully taken from her. How gladly would we hope that her hard lot taught her the vanity of all the glories of this world, and moved her heart to seek the glory of the world to come. How gladly would we hope that her sorrows softened her heart, and led her to the God of the Jews, who were thickly sprinkled even in Shushan the palace, and some of whom maintained a testimony for the Lord there. The Jews had a name—-were evidently regarded as the favorites of heaven—-even in the house of Haman, whose wife said to him, “If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.” Mordecai the Jew was exalted to the place of Haman. “And many of the people of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.” Some of these doubtless became Jews inwardly as well as outwardly, and we may fondly hope that the wronged and suffering Vashti was among the number. What remained to her among the heathen?

Yet we know well enough that the wrongs of many women rather harden than soften them, and they are hardened not only against men, but against God also. The difference between these two sorts of women lies just in their faith. Unbelief attributes the wrongs of men to God. Not so faith. Faith lays hold of the goodness of God, and in spite of all the dictates of the powers that be, all the dreams of mistaken theology, and all the claims of established religion, faith holds inviolate the fact that wrong cannot proceed from God. Faith therefore turns to God under its wrongs, while unbelief turns away from him. The day of judgement will declare whether Vashti had that faith. If not, we can only say, how bitter the loss, in the loss of such a soul!

Glenn Conjurske